DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 
BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1920, No. 21 



SCHOOLS IN THE 

BITUMINOUS COAL REGIONS OF THE 

APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS 



By 



W. S, DEFFENBAUGH 




WASHINGTON 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
" 1920 



DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1920, No. 21 



SCHOOLS IN THE 

BITUMINOUS COAL REGIONS OF THE 

APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS 



By 



W. S. DEFFENBAUGH 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1920 






ADDITIONAL COPIES 

OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE PROCURED FROM 

THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 

AT 

10 CENTS PER COPY 



D? of 3< 

so m\ 



<£ 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Letter of transmittal 4 

I. General background 5 

II. The schools as they are__ 7 

1. Nationality of children 7 

2. Elementary school attendance 7 

3. Retardation 9 

4. High-school enrollment 10 

5. Education of teachers 10 

6. Experience of teachers 11 

7. Elementary course of study 11 

8. High-school course of study 12 

9. School buildings and grounds 12 

10. School term 12 

III. How the children employ their leasure time 12 

IV. The schools as they should be A 13 

1. The school and the leisure time of children l3 

2. Course of study — work-study-play 15 

3. Kindergartens is 

4. Teachers 19 

5. The teacher's home 20 

V. Examples of mining-town schools 20 

1. Langeloth, Pa 21 

2. Ellsworth, Pa 22 

3. Schools of Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co 30 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



,4 



Page 
Plate 1. A, Instructor's home, Edgewater, Ala.; B, "Bedroom, in- 
structor's home, Edgewater, Ala 8 

2. A, Toothbrush drill, Edgewater, Ala. ; B, Domestic science 
class for adults. Edgewater, Ala 9 

3. A, Domestic science class, Bayview, Ala. ; B, Domestic science 
house, Bayview, Ala , 8 

4. A, Kindergarten, Edgewater, Ala. ; B, Kindergarten for colored 
children, Edgewater, Ala : 9 

5. A, Colored instructors' recreation class, Muscoda, Ala. ; B, 
colored community house, Muscoda, Ala 16 

6. A, Living room, teacher's home, Ellsworth, Pa. ; B, Vocational 
shop, Ellsworth, Pa 17 

7. A, Boy's home garden, Blocton, Ala. ; B, Household arts de- 
partment, Ellsworth, Pa r 16 

8. A, Teacher's cottage, Kayford, W. Va. ; B, Teacher's home, 

Langeloth, Pa.; C, Visiting nurse's home, Langeloth, Pa 17 

3 



LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 



Department of the Interior, 

Bureau of Education, 
Washington, January 28, 1920. 

Sir : The education of the hundreds of thousands of children in 
mining villages and towns in various sections of the United States 
involves so many problems common to these communities, but differ- 
ent in character or in degree, or in both, from the education of the 
children of other communities, that I have felt it a part of my duty 
as Commissioner of Education to bring these problems to the atten- 
tion of education officers in the several States in which there are min- 
ing regions and to the attention of students of education generally. 
For this purpose I have held or caused to be held in the last few 
years several important conferences, in which school officers, teachers 
of schools in mining centers, mine owners and operators, and mine 
workers have come together to discuss these problems. That we 
might have fuller and more accurate information of the needs of 
these mining villages and towns and of the present condition of their 
schools, I have asked Mr. W. S. Deffenbaugh, of this bureau, to make 
a careful first-hand study of some of them as he might have oppor- 
tunity. The manuscript which I am transmitting herewith for pub- 
lication as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education is the result of the 
study which he has until now been able to make of education in some 
of the mining villages of the bituminous coal region of the Appa- 
lachian Mountains. While this study has been neither so compre- 
hensive nor so thorough as Mr. Deffenbaugh and I wished it might 
have been, this report will serve a valuable purpose as a basis for 
further studies by this bureau and other agencies. 

Eespectfully submitted. 

P. P. Claxton, 

Commissioner. 

The Secretary of the Interior. 
4 



SCHOOLS IN THE BITUMINOUS COAL REGIONS OF THE 
APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS. 



This brief study is based upon several weeks' observation of 
schools and mining towns in what are considered the best districts in 
the bituminous coal region of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and 
Alabama, and upon some years' acquaintance with mining town 
schools. No attempt is made to show poor conditions or to dwell 
upon them but rather to point out in a general way the type of 
school that should be maintained in every mining community. 

General, background. — Scattered from Pittsburgh, Pa., south to 
Birmingham, Ala., are hundreds of mining towns, or camps, varying 
in population from about 100 to 2,000 or 2,500. When a town, though 
located in the midst of a mining section, exceeds the latter number, it 
usually lias other than mining town characteristics. 

The purely mining town is made up of miners, pit and fire bosses, 
and other employees and their families. Nearly every race and nation- 
ality of south central Europe is represented in the popoulation of the 
typical mining town of western Pennsylvania and northern West 
Virginia. A greater proportion of natives is found in the southern 
part of the Appalachian region. Some years ago many of the for- 
eign miners were direct from Ireland. Now there are comparatively 
few Irish miners. Most of the Irish about the mines are there in 
the capacity of bosses and superintendents. Following 'the Irish 
miners came the Italians, who have also to a great extent abandoned 
coal digging for positions about the mines or have taken up other 
occupations. Just preceding the World War the greatest number 
of miners came from Austria-Hungary. Whether these will continue 
to be diggers of coal remains to be seen. Experience has shown that 
as soon as the Irish and Italians become educated in the least degree 
most of them leave the mines as diggers. The same may be true of 
the Slavs. Thus far the digging of coal has been the work of the 
uneducated, often of the illiterate, many miners being illiterate not 
only in English but in their own language. 

Most of the foreign miners, however, learn to speak English about 
the mines, but the wife of the miner has little incentive to learn 
English, since she has small need of conversing with the English- 

5 



6 SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 

speaking men and women in the community. The children of the 
foreign miner learn English around the streets and in the schools, 
but if the mother speaks her native language at home the conversa- 
tion of the family is in a foreign tongue. 

The buildings in a mining camp, or town, are the company store, 
the buildings necessary for the operation of the mines, as engine 
house and power plant, and the houses in which the miners, bosses, 
and superintendent live. . The dwelling houses of the miners are 
small, usually of three or four rooms each, without bath or cellar. 
The lots are about 30 by 60 feet. In some districts they are larger, 
while in others they are much smaller. 

While sanitary conditions in many mining communities are far 
from ideal, a few mining companies are doing much to care for the 
health of the mining population. In a few places the domestic water 
supply has been improved and the source of contamination removed 
or taken care of ; deep wells have been drilled and properly protected 
by pipe casing and concrete pump base to prevent surface water from 
getting into the wells. Filtration plants have been installed and 
pure water furnished through a system of mains connected with a 
sanitary reservoir. The drinking water is analyzed monthly or 
oftener. 

The sanitary disposal of garbage and ashes in the mining town is 
now recognized as an important factor in the improvement of health 
conditions. In a few towns there are garbage receptacles, the con- 
tents of which are removed weekly or semi weekly as occasion de- 
mands. 

•In some places sanitary outhouses with concrete vaults have been 
built to replace the old insanitary outhouses of former years. Open 
sewers have at times been constructed to remove the kitchen waste. 
Wash and change houses have been installed in a very few mining 
towns, near the mine entrance, so that the miner may take a shower 
bath and dress in his clean street clothes. 

In several communities medical supervision has been made to in- 
clude medical examination of new employees, medical examination 
of the children, sanitary inspection of the towns, instruction in first 
aid, instruction in personal hygiene and other phases of health in- 
spection. 

Most mining towns have what is known as a company doctor or 
a contract doctor, who is paid over the company pay roll a fixed 
sum. This is usually $1 a month for each married man and 50 cents 
a month for each single man employed. The amount is, however, 
deducted from the employees' pay. By this plan an employee may 
call the physician for himself or any member of his famity at any 
time. Thus the miner may on the slightest symptoms of illness have 
proper medical treatment. If the company physician discovers a 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 7 

contagious disease, he immediately reports the fact to the sanitary 
department through the superintendent of the mine. 

In addition to the company physician, there are in some places 
company nurses, to give aid in the homes in cases of sickness and 
to instruct the miner's wife regarding the care of children. A few 
of the companies have established club houses for their employees 
and equipped playgrounds for the children. 

The foregoing brief description of living conditions, however, does 
not apply to mining camps where the employer has not yet realized 
that a mining community should be made as attractive and as 
healthful as possible. There are still many camps in the Appala- 
chian region that beggar description. 

THE SCHOOLS AS THEY ARE. 

Nationality of children. — In the usual mining town school in the 
bituminous coal region a large percentage of the children are of 
foreign parentage. For illustration, in one coal mining township 
in western Pennsylvania there are, out of an enrollment of 2,373, 
only 786, or 33.1 per cent, American white children. Many of these 
live on the farms in the township. In a purely mining town in the 
same region where 682 pupils are enrolled' only 125, or 18.3 per cent, 
are American white. It is not uncommon to find from 10 to 20 
or more different races and nationalities in the same school. In the 
two school districts just referred to there are about 20 different races 
and nationalities in each, distributed as follows : 

Table 1. — Nationality of the children. 



Nationalities. 


Town- 
ship in- 
cluding 

some few 
farm 

children. 


. Purely 
mining 
town. 


Nationalities. 


Town- 
ship in- 
cluding 

some few 
farm 

children. 


Purely 
mining 
town. 




786 

631 

294 

192 

146 

94 

87 

85 

20 

16 


125 

185 

82 

73 

96 

4 

3 

6 

11 

8 




5 
5 
12 




Slav 














English 


34 


Polish 






22 








11 








14 








8 




Total 








2,373 


682 









School attendance. — School attendance is very good in some of the 
mining communities, but usually only where the compulsory attend- 
ance law is rigorously enforced. Data regarding attendance were 
collected >si one township enrolling 2,680 pupils in the elementary 
schools. The compulsory attendance law in that township is enforced 
almost, to the letter. Of the pupils, 83.4 per cent attend more than 



8 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL EEGIONS. 



three-fourths the term of 160 days and 51.2 per cent attended from 

150 to 160 days, or about every day. The following table shows the 

distribution of school attendance in that township for the term of 

1917-18 : 

Table 2. — School attendance. 



Days attended. 


Number of 
pupils. 








13 

• 13 

26 

20 

20 

33 

33 

67 

S3 

53 

113 

120 

301 

442 

1,373 


| 


11 20 


>1. 9 per cent attended less than one-fourth the term. 


21 30 


31 40 


J 


41 50 


1 


51 60 


1 3. 9 per cent attended more than one-fourth but less than 


61 70 


| one-half the term. 


71 80 


1 


81 90. 


) 


91 100. 


1 10. 5 per cent attended more than half but less than tl ree- 


101 110 


| fourths the term. 


Ill 120 


J 


121-130 


j 


131 140 


>83. 4 per cent attended more than three-fourths the term. 


141 150 


151-160 


J 






Total 


2,680 






' 



That the compulsory attendance law holds most of the children 
in school until they are 14 years of age seems evident from the follow- 
ing table based upon the enrollment of 5,634 children in two mining 
townships and in three independent districts in western Pennsyl- 
vania, representing in all about 20 mining towns : 

Table 3. — Continuance of children in school. 



Enrollment. 


Age. 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 




639 
100 


652 
102 


661 
103 


679 
105 


654 
102 


638 
100 


641 
100 


551 
86 


353 
55 


149 
23 


12 


Enrollment at each age for every 
100 enrolled 6 years of age 


2 



The enrollment in each grade is practically the same from 6 to 
13 years. At 13 the enrollment drops off slightly and at 14 there 
is a decided decrease. Of course some few of those 14 years of age 
have completed the eighth grade. 

The following table shows the number of pupils enrolled in each 
grade for every 100 enrolled in the first grade; also the percentage 
enrolled in each grade in mining town schools. The percentage en- 
rolled in each grade in 14 States is also given. It may be noted that 
for every 100 enrolled in the first grade there are 13 in the eighth 
grade. If the number of beginners in the first grade were known 
exactly, it would be possible to present more nearly accurate data. 
Approximately, the number of beginners in the first grade equals 



BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1920, NO. 21 PLATE 1 




A. INSTRUCTOR'S HOME, EDGEWATER, ALA. 




B. BEDROOM, INSTRUCTOR'S HOME, EDGEWATER, ALA. 



BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1920, NO. 21 PLATE 2 




A. TOOTHBRUSH DRILL, EDGEWATER, ALA. 




B. DOMESTIC SCIENCE CLASS FOR ADULTS, EDGEWATER, ALA. 



BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1920, NO. 21 PLATE 3 




A. DOMESTIC SCIENCE CLASS, BAYVIEW, ALA. 




B. DOMESTIC SCIENCE HOUSE, BAYVIEW, ALA. 



BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1920, NO. 21 PLATE 4 




A. KINDERGARTEN, EDGEWATER, ALA. 




B. KINDERGARTEN FOR COLORED CHILDREN, EDGEWATER, ALA. 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 



9 



the enrollment in the second grade. If this be the case, there are 
19 in the eighth grade for every 100 beginners in the first. In other 
words, about 19 per cent of those entering school are in the eighth 
grade. 

Table 4. — Pupils enrolled in each grade for every 100 enrolled in first grade 

Percentage enrolled in each grade. 



Enrollment. 


Grade. 


1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


' 8 




1,399 

100 

24.8 

27.74 


910 

65 

16.2 

14.76 


907 

65 

16.1 

13.90 


782 

56 

13.8 

13.10 


641 

46 

11.4 

10.95 


508 

36 

9.0 

8.74 


311 

22 

5.6 

6.93 


176 

13 

3.1 

3.88 


Number enrolled for every 100 in first 


Per cent of total enrollment in each grade 


Per cent of total enrollment in each grade 
in 14 States 





Retardation. — The following table shows that the amount of re- 
tardation is excessive, especially when the fact that two years are 
allowed for normal age is taken into account : 

Table 5. — Per cent of pupils young, normal, and over age for their respective 

grades. 



Grade. 


Young. 


Normal. 


Over age. 


1.. 
2.. 
3.. 
4.. 
5.. 
6.. 
7.. 
8.. 




0.4 
2.6 
2.0 
2.7 
3.1 
2.1 
4.5 
9.1 


75.0 

54.3 
44.4 
36.3 
40.4 
40.5 
51.4 
58.5 


25.0 
43.1 
53.6 
58.0 
56.5 
57.4 
44.1 
32.4 
















Total 


2.3 


52.5 


45.0 





Table 6. — Age grade distribution. 



Grade. 


Age in years. 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


17 


Total. 


1 


5 


615 


431 


194 


'92 
197 


42 
119 
208 


13 
43 
121 

203 


4 
25 
97 
1415 


3 

8 

45 

68 

123 










1,390 
910 


2 


24 


203 


291 










3 






18 


155 


248 


12 
34 
55 
92 

IfKJ 


3 
10 
17 

45 
25 
49 






907 


4 






21 


121 


178 


1 




782 
641 


5 








1 


96 


163 J 167 


6 










10 

1 


81 


125 l 153 


1 
2 

7 


1 


503 












13 
1 


62 99 


311 

176 


S 












15 | 52 ^ 




















Total . 


5 


639 


652 


661 


679 


654 


638 


641 551 


353 


149 


11 


1 


5,634 



By referring to Table 5 it will be seen that the greatest amount 
of retardation is in grades 3, 4, -6, and 6. The per cent of retarda- 
10179°— 20 2 



10 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL KEQIONS. 



tion decreases after the 6th grade because those who are over age 
and who have completed the sixth grade as required by State law 
drop out of school. A child more than 2 years too old for its 
grade as a rule remains in school only under compulsion. 

High-school enrollment. — Since the amount of retardation in the 
elementary schools is large, the enrollment in high schools is small 
in comparison, being only 370 for the 5,634 pupils enrolled in the 
elementary grades. For every 100 children enrolled in the first 
grade of the elementary schools there are 10 in the first year high 
school, 6 in the second, 7 in the third, and 5 in the fourth. After the 
pupils have entered high school there is comparatively little elimina- 
tion after the first year. 

Education of teachers. — Of 180 elementary grade teachers in a 
mining district in western Pennsylvania, only a few have gone 
beyond a four-year high-school course, as may be seen in Table 7. 
Data regarding the education of 300 elementary teachers in Jeffer- 
son County, Ala., which contains many mining town schools, are also 
included. 

Of the 180 teachers, only 15 per cent have attended school more 
than four years beyond the eighth grade. " Of the 300 teachers, 36 
per cent have attended school more than four years beyond the 
eighth grade. The better showing made by the teachers in Jeffer- 
son County, Ala.., may be due to the fact that the Tennessee Coal & 
Iron Co. supplements the regular school funds of the county by many 
thousands of dollars each year, thus making it possible to employ 
teachers who have had a normal-school course in addition to a four- 
year high-school course and to the fact that teachers in some of the 
steel-manufacturing towns just outside of Birmingham and in sub- 
urban residential towns are included. 

Table 7. — Number of teachers. 



Years of education beyond the Sth grade. 



Oyear.. 

1 year.. 

2 years. 

3 years. 

4 years. 

5 years. 

6 years . 

7 years . 



Total. 



180 teachers in west- ' 300 teachers in Ala- 
ern Pennsylvania. bama. 



Number of 
teachers. 



ISO 



Per cent. 



18.9 
8.3 
7.2 
17.8 
32.8 
8.3 
6.7 



130. 



Number of 
teachers. 



300 



Per cent. 



0.7 

5.0 
7.3 
30.0 
21.0 
31.0 
.7 
4.3 

100.0 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL EEGIONS. 



11 



Experience of teachers. — About one- fourth of the 180 teachers are 
teaching their first term, and about half are teaching for the first 
time in their present position, as may be seen in the following table : 



Table 8. — Experience of teachers. 



Term. 


Experi- 
ence any- 
where. 


Experi- 
ence in 
present 
position. 


Term. 


Experi- 
ence any- 
where. 


Experi- 
ence in 
present 
position. 


First 


Per cent. 

26.7 

16.7 

10.0 

7.2 

6.1 


Per cent. 
55.0 
19.5 
- 8.9 
2.8 
3.8 


Sixth 


Per cent. 
5.0 
3.9 
3.9 
2.8 
17.7 


Per cent. 
3.8 






2.8 


Third 


Eighth 


0.0 




Ninth 


0.0 


Fifth 




3.4 









Course of study in elementary schools. — The elementary course of 
study is eight years and comprises the subjects taught in most small 
town and rural schools, there being but little or no attention given 
to manual training, cooking, sewing, music, drawing, and physical 
training. The chief emphasis is placed upon arithmetic, spelling, 
reading, penmanship, and English grammar. In nearly all districts 
arithmetic for a long time was a fetish, but it has been made less 
so in a few by the elimination of some useless topics. Spelling and 
reading have a large share of attention. Composition, oral and writ- 
ten, is not accorded a prominent place in any of the elementary 
grades, while formal grammer receives much attention in the inter- 
mediate and grammar grades. Many of the useless technicalities are 
dwelt upon, and material belonging to the high school is introduced. 
For example, several sixth-grade classes were observed struggling 
with the intricacies of the infinitive. 

In brief, the usual mining town course of study is bookish and not 
based in any way upon mining town life. Arithmetic, for instance, 
does not draw any problems from the mines but from 'the bank, stock 
exchange, and commission merchant. What few language lessons 
there are are based upon books and not upon what is at hand in the 
mining camp. 

In many mining communities home gardening by the children is 
encouraged, but thus far it has been largely a matter of planting, 
weeding, and harvesting. Few, if any, correlations with other sub- 
jects have been worked out. 

Play as a part of the school work receives no attention except in a 
few towns. Eecess periods are provided, but there is no supervision 
of the play. Neither has physical training been given any prominent 
place except calisthenic exercises for a few minutes and these in only 
a few schools. 



12 SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 

As already mentioned, music instruction, drawing, manual train- 
ing, cooking, and sewing are rarely found in the elementary grades. 
The kindergarten is seldom found in mining towns. It is doubtful 
whether there are any in the mining towns of the Appalachian re- 
gion, outside of Jefferson County, Ala., and Ellsworth, Pa. 

High-school course. — The usual mining town high-school course of 
study is made up of algebra, plane geometry, Latin, a modern for- 
eign language, ancient, medieval, modern, and United States history, 
physics, chemistry, and English. Out of this list there are a few 
electives or substitutions, as a modern foreign language for Latin. In 
' some high schools there are commercial courses which prepare pupils 
for stenographic and other positions in the offices and stores in the 
mining camps. 

Manual-training and home-making courses have not been generally 
introduced. Some schools are, however, now giving more attention 
to these subjects. Vocational home economics and vocational courses 
in mining are almost unknown in mining communities. In a few 
schools, as at Ellsworth and McClellandtown, Pa., a beginning in 
vocational work has been made. 

School ouildings and grounds. — School buildings in the mining re- 
gion under discussion are of. all kinds from the one-room box type to 
the modern well-lighted, well-ventilated, sanitary building. School 
buildings in some mining communities can not be surpassed in plan- 
ning, equipment, and in sanitary conditions. There are, however, too 
few of these. More often the opposite type is found, but as new 
buildings are erected they are of the more modern type. The school 
grounds are almost without exception small and not well adapted for 
games. Some few are equipped with play apparatus. 

School term. — The school term varies from 5 months, 100 days, in 
some sections to 9 months, 180 days, in other sections of the Appa- 
lachian region. The usual term is 7 or 8 months. 

How children employ their time. — In mining communities there is 
little for boys under 14 or 15 years of age to do when they are not in 
school or helping with the few chores about home ; so they collect in 
gangs, loaf about the mines and in box cars, and often commit petty 
infractions of the law. They are free from authority or try to outwit 
the authorities. In either case they are at an early age learning to 
disrespect and to disregard law and order. The girls have more 
chores about home than the boys. They have to help wash the dishes, 
scrub, wash, and take care of the babies; so they are not so likely to 
loaf around the stores, in the alleys, and on the vacant lots, but even 
with more chores at home they do not have all their time profitably 
occupied. 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL EEGIONS. 13 

The foregoing statement is based upon replies made by several 
thousand school children to the question, What do you do durino- 
vacation? Upon replies of parents to the question, What do your 
children do when not in school? And upon replies of teachers and 
others to the question, What do the children in this community do 
during the summer vacation and at other times when school is not in 
session ? 

THE SCHOOLS AS THEY SHOULD BE. 

In the preceding pages a brief outline is presented showing condi- 
tions in mining communities in respect to school attendance, prepa- 
ration of teachers, the course of study, and other things. In the 
following pages the aim is to point out in what respects schools in 
mining towns may be improved. It is only a platitude to say that 
schools in the mining regions should be as good as those anywhere 
else, that the children of miners are entitled to as good school facili- 
ties, as good buildings, as well prepared teachers as are the children 
living in the most cultured section of the most cultured city in the 
United States. Any lower ideal would be un-American. 

What is outlined in the following paragraphs are ideals which are 
attainable. In some respects they have been attained, but no one 
mining community has attained them all. If the good things in edu- 
cation in all mining communities could be brought together into one 
school system, it would approach an ideal. 

The school and the leisure time of children. — One of the great 
needs in mining towns, and in other places for that matter, is some 
means of keeping the children busy at play, study and work. If a 
child attends school 5 hours a day for 160 days, he is in school only 
800 hours a year, while there are 5,110 waking hours for children 
who sleep 10 hours a day. Children who attend regularly are in 
school a little less than one-third of the waking hours of a school term 
of 160 days, and for 205 days they are not in school at all. 

In order to help provide profitable employment for these children, 
the school term should be lengthened to 48 weeks a year. This would 
allow four weeks' vacation. In addition there would be the usual, 
holidays. If the term were 48 weeks of 25 or even 30 hours a week, a 
child attending 30 hours a week would be in school only 1,440 hours a 
year or about one-fourth of his waking hours. No all-year schools 
have been organized in the bituminous mining region ; so no conclu- 
sions as to their value as shown by experience can be given. But 
judging from the success of such schools in a city where there is 
nothing for the children to do during out-of-school hours, they would 
be just as valuable in a mining town. 



14 SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL KEGIONS. 

In Newark, N. J., where all-year schools have been in operation 
for five years in the crowded section of the city it has been discovered 
that they solve the problem of street loafing to a large extent. 
Several policemen report that since the organization of the all-year 
schools in that city they have had but little trouble during the summer 
months with gangs of boys and that there are fewer street accidents. 

What the mothers in Newark say is without doubt equally applicable 
to mining towns. A few replies are quoted : 

1. "A shame to let children run our streets during the summer. We people 
can't send our children away; our homes are not what they should be. They 
are not comfortable like the schoolhouse." 

2. " The children if left to run the streets would be fighting and learning 
bad things. Some parents take up the quarrels of their children, and then 
there is a general row among the parents in the flat. There is less of this since 
our children attend school." 

3. " I lived in another city where there was no school in the summer and I 
found the children got into more trouble than they do in this section of Newark 
where the children are in school all day." 

4. " If there were no summer schools we would not know where our children 
are. They would leave home early in the morning and run all over the city. 
Now we know that they are safe in the schoolhouse and in no danger of being 
run over by automobiles or street cars." 

The children themselves favor the all-year term, for they realize 

that they can complete more school work by the time they are 14 

j^ears of age. The following are typical replies of school children in 

Newark to the question, "Why do you attend school all year when 

you are not compelled to do so? " 

1. "It (the summer term) keeps you from hanging around the streets and 
saves you from trouble." 

2. " I am kept from bad company." 

3. " If I hadn't come to school in the summer I would be in 5 C, and I am 
in 7 A." 

4. " One day I heard my mother say to a friend of ours, when she said that 
children ought not to go to school during the summer, 'Why not? At home 
they sit around asking me every now and then what they should do. In school 
they would have plenty of work to do.' " 

5. "In my home it is not very comfortable during the summer, as the sun 
shines in, making it very warm, and in the streets it is warmer; so I go to 
school rather than get heated up." 

6. " When the all-year school started I decided to try out the plan by going 
to school in the summer. After being in school for about two weeks I found it 
more comfortable in school than out of doors. During the hot days of summer 
I attended to my work just as if it was a cool day." 

The health of the children who attend school the entire year is not 
injured. The school physicians and nurses at Newark report that 
there is less sickness among children and teachers during the summer 
term. This is only what would be expected, because of the fact that 
there is better ventilation of school buildings. 

If the school term were 48 weeks, the work now done in 8 years 
could be done in 6. Children who now complete the grades at 14 



SCHOOLS I3ST THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 15 

years of age could attend high school one or two years by their four- 
teenth birthday, when they are permitted to leave school. Others 
who now complete only six grades would have completed by the time 
they are 14 the entire elementary course of eight grades. If the 
school year were 48 weeks there would be no necessity for spending 
a month or two reviewing the work of the previous year, as is now 
the custom with a three or four months' vacation, during which 
time the children get out of the habit of studying and forget much 
that they have learned. 

A term of 48 weeks can be conveniently divided into four terms 
of 12 weeks each. Then, if it is not possible for a pupil to attend 
four terms he may attend three and have as much schooling as he 
would in a term of 36 weeks, which is more than is now offered in 
most mining communities. But a term of 48 weeks can not be recom- 
mended if the school is organized from a purely academic stand- 
point. Under this type of school a moderately short day and a 
moderately short year are no doubt best, for such school is an inter- 
ruption in a child's life, and not a part of it. Only when the school 
adapts itself to the life of the child, so that his life is not inter- 
rupted, should the day and the year be lengthened. This may be 
brought about by providing for work, study, and play. 

The course of study — work, study, and play. — The mining town 
course of study should be based as far as possible upon a mining 
town life, not that the course is to be so narrow that it fits pupils 
only for mining, but it should use the material at hand for teaching 
arithmetic, language, and other subjects. To know thoroughly what 
is at home is to know the world. As already mentioned, the course 
of study as it is in most mining town schools directs the attention 
of the children away from the life of their own community, and, 
besides, it does not start with the familiar and known. The un- 
known is jumped into without any basis in the known for its com- 
prehension. 

Among the subjects not now generally included should be home- 
making courses for girls, courses related to mining for boys, garden- 
ing, music, drawing, and physical training through play and more 
formal exercises. 

There should be courses in home making, because most of the girls 
marry and have homes of their own. As it is, few receive any in- 
struction in cooking, sewing, and the general management of a 
home ; hence there is a waste not only in money but in physical effi- 
ciency. The work should begin at the fourth or fifth grade and con- 
tinue through the elementary schools and should be offered for four 
years in the high school. 



16 SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 

Constructive work should begin in the lower grades. In the inter- 
mediate and grammar grades manual training based upon the simpler 
manual operations in the community should be required. In the high 
school a vocational course based upon the occupations about the 
mines should be offered. There are, however, many limitations to 
this, because boys under 16 years of age are not permitted to do cer- 
tain work in connection with mining. There are, however, many 
occupations above ground which they can learn. At least they can 
learn some of the principles of mine operation. For an analysis of 
the mining occupation and for suggestions for vocational work in 
mining, see Bulletin No. 38, Trade and Industrial Series No. 8, 
Federal Board for Vocational Education. 

A subject much needed is vocal music. From 20 to 30 minutes a 
day should be devoted to it, not simply to technique but to singing. 
Music is a common language that all can understand, since it deals 
with the broad universal human moods. A group of pupils made 
up of Americans, Slavs, Italians, and others exhibit under the appeal 
of music a closeness of sympathy and a unity of feeling not exhibited 
in any other school exercise. The music period may be the only time 
in the day when complete social solidarity is attained. Nothing 
will do more to Americanize the foreign element, also the American, 
in the mining town schools. 

One reason that music receives but little attention in mining com- 
munities is that there is no supervisor to help the teachers. Provision 
for supervision could be made by several communities employing 
the same supervisors. Where the township or the county is the unit 
of administration and supervision, it is an easy matter to provide 
supervisors to go from school to school. This plan is in operation 
in several counties and is well worth a trial. Another way, where there 
are several teachers, is to so departmentalize the school that music 
may be taught by one teacher. Every teacher should, however, be 
able to teach music. 

Another neglected subject is drawing and art. If art instruction 
were introduced into the mining town schools, it would be only a 
few years until the whole community would take on a different ap- 
pearance, because the pupils who had received instruction in the 
subject would demand more beautiful surroundings and better deco- 
rated homes. At least two 30-minute periods a week should be given 
to the subject in each of the elementary grades. 

Supervision could be provided in the same way as suggested for 
music. 

Home gardening under the direction of the school should be made 
an integral part of the elementary course of study, since there is 
need of suitable educational, purposeful, productive occupation for 



BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1920, NO. 21 PLATE 5 




A. COLORED INSTRUCTORS' RECREATION CLASS, MUSCODA, ALA. 




B. COLORED COMMUNITY HOUSE, MUSCODA, ALA. 



BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1920, NO. 21 PLATE 6 




A. LIVING ROOM, TEACHER'S HOME, ELLSWORTH, PA. 




B. VOCATIONAL SHOP, ELLSWORTH, PA. 



BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1920, NO. 21 PLATE 7 




A. BOY'S HOME GARDEN, BLOCTON, ALA. 




B. HOUSEHOLD ARTS DEPARTMENT, ELLSWORTH, PA. 



BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1920, NO. 21 PLATE 8 




A. TEACHER'S COTTAGE, KAYFORD, 
W. VA. 



f'f r I 

ill -.1; J 


nil 


^sS 







B. TEACHER'S HOME, LANGELOTH, PA. 




C. VISITING NURSE'S HOME, LANGE- 
LOTH, PA. 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL EEGIONS. 17 

the thousands of school children in mining communities. To delve 
in the soil is a primitive instinct. When a teacher takes advantage 
of this instinct and sees tiiat children delve intelligently, he is edu- 
cating them physically, mentally, and morally. 

Garden work is one of the most direct and practical ways of teach- 
ing about nature. It furnishes not only the material but a motive 
for nature study. Much of the material for number work, English 
composition, art, domestic science, and other subjects can be drawn 
from the home garden. 

Home gardening is an asset to any mining community considered 
only in its economic aspect, for every mining village can practically 
become independent in its supply of vegetables by proper garden- 
ing, drying, canning, und storing of its garden products, thus add- 
ing to the wealth of the community. For illustration, in one mining 
town 245 school children raised, on a conservative estimate, $10,000 
worth of vegetables last summer. 

The practical operation of home gardening so as to relate it to 
the school requires that a supervisor be employed for 12 months in 
the year. This supervisor could teach nature study or elementary 
science during school hours and could supervise the gardening after 
school hours, on Saturday, and daring the summer vacation. The 
additional expense would be small compared to the returns. If $500 
were added to the salary of the teacher, and he should direct the 
work of 150 children, the return to the community would be at least 
$5,000, or a profit of $4,500 on an investment of $500. Any business 
man would hasten to invest $500 if he thought that he could make a 
profit of 900 per cent. Many would even gamble with $500 for such 
profits. 

But all work and study make Jack a dull boy. A child can not 
live his life fully and completely without playing. The play in- 
stinct is too strongly rooted in the race for him not to play. The 
schools should, therefore, not ignore one of the deepest-seated in- 
stincts, but should utilize it in all physical, mental, and moral 
training. 

When children play they are not only making good use of their 
leisure time now but they are forming the play habit which will 
enable them to make good use of their leisure time later in life. As 
Prof. James says : 

If a boy grows up alone at the age of games and sports, and learns neither to 
play ball, nor row, nor sail, nor ride, nor skate, nor fish, nor shont. probably 
he will be sedentary to the end of his days ; and, though the best of oppor- 
tunities be afforded him for learning these later, it is a hundred to one that he 
will pass them by and shrink back from the effort of taking the necessary 
first steps, the prospect of which at an earlier day would have filled him v.ith 
delight. 



18 SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL EEGIONS. 

The great need in many mining towns is a place for the children to 
play under proper supervision. They will run, they will throw, 
they will congregate, but where are they going to run, to throw, and 
to congregate? Many of the boys brought before the courts are 
there for the crime of playing, but for a perverted form of play. 
Not the boys but the town is to blame for not providing means 
whereby the instinct for running, throwing, climbing, and congre- 
gating may be turned to good account in group games and in games 
that require running, throwing, dodging, and' a score of other activi- 
ties in which children delight. 

There should be not only free play but such systematic physical 
training — not necessarily military — as will give correct carriage and 
physical endurance, since the child in the mining town has but small 
opportunity for physical development aside from the games that 
he plays. 'He does no work that tends to build a strong body as 
does the farm boy, and even the farm boy, it has been found, needs 
certain kinds of exercises in addition to those he has in his round of 
farm duties. 

The school should provide suitable playgrounds well equipped 
with play apparatus and large enough for baseball, football, basket 
ball, and other games. A supervisor should be employed for the 
entire year to supervise the playgrounds not only during the school 
term but during vacation. When school is in session he should have 
charge of all the physical work. In the smaller towns he might have 
time to teach a few classes. 

Kindergartens. — Many children in mining towns live in an envi- 
ronment savored with Old World ideals. They hear foreign lan- 
guages spoken at home and on the street. They think in these lan- 
guages until they start to school or even until after they have been 
in school for several years. It is impossible to measure the influence 
of this upon their character and habits of thought. Since the words 
of no two languages have exactly the same meaning, the boy or girl 
brought up in a home where a foreign language is spoken does not 
think in quite the same way as the child brought up in a home where 
English is spoken. 

If this be true, children who hear nothing but a foreign tongue 
and who speak it all or part of the time in early childhood should 
at the earliest possible moment be taught English. When they enter 
school they are taught to pronounce words. Frequently children in 
the primary grades read fluently without understanding what they 
read, just as one of us may learn to read Italian, Spanish, and other 
foreign languages; that is, to pronounce words, after a few weeks' 
instruction in the sound of letters, but this is not learning the lan- 



mm 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 19 

guage. We must know "for what idea each word stands. The for- 
eign child soon learns to pronounce words in his reader, and after 
associating with English-speaking children and by gaining some ex- 
perience in the world he may in a year or two after he enters school 
or by the time he is 7 or 8 years of age have a fair knowledge of 
what he reads in a primary book. The number of failures in read- 
ing and other subjects in the first grade in mining communities would 
indicate that they are caused to a great extent by a lack of under- 
standing of English. 

But why defer the teaching of English to foreign children until 
they are 6 or 7 years of age? The time ideally to teach the foreign 
child the use of our language would be when he begins to imitate 
sounds, but this is impractical. However, he can be taught English 
at 4 or 5 years of age if he is sent to a kindergarten. 

If kindergartens were established in mining towns, children would 
not enter the first grade almost wholly ignorant of the use of Eng- 
lish. They would have stored up a body of concepts that would 
make it possible for them to understand what they read and to ad- 
vance normally through the grades. As it is, they often spend two 
years in the first grade, largely because they do not understand the 
language of the schoolroom. Having failed in the first grade it is 
easy to form the failing habit, which many do. The final result is 
elimination. 

A year or two in kindergarten, where there is freedom, where the 
children may express themselves in action and in word, would so 
add to their mental and language equipment that not so many would 
have to repeat the first grade. Instead of adding the one year of 
kindergarten work to the child's school life, several more would be 
added. 

There are other reasons for kindergarten training which apply 
to mining town schools as well as to other schools. These reasons 
at : so well known that they need not be repeated. 

Teachers. — In a preceding section it was shown that few teachers 
in mining communities have had more than two or three years' school- 
ing beyond the eighth grade. This is undoubtedly a weakness, since 
elementary teachers should have not only four years of high-school 
work, but in addition two years of normal-school work. Even those 
who have had normal-sihool training have not been instructed re- 
garding mining town conditions. They have been given little or 
no instruction in regard to the teaching of English to foreign chil- 
dren, and have made no study of mining town sociology. 

After many teachers have begun work in a mining community 
they learn nothing about the life of the community, for they 



20 SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL KEGIONS. 

do not live in the mining towns but in some city connected by trolley. 
These teachers, therefore, are of little service in community work. 
Even many of those who do board in the mining towns take no 
interest in its life. The mining town teacher should be more than a 
pedagogue teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. She should 
learn the habits and customs of the different races and nationalities, 
so that she may have a starting point in her work. 

Teacher's home. — : The reason many teachers give for not rooming 
and boarding in the town where they teach is that there are no 
suitable rooming places. A teacher in a State normal school says th^t 
after getting all the information she could from the teachers in 
regard to living conditions in mining camps she herself went out 
into the field and lived exactly as the teachers in order to learn 
what they had to contend with. " My first experience," she writes, 
" was in a ' model ' camp. It was during January, and for one long 
week, with zero weather every day, I had to bathe, dress and sleep in 
a badly ceiled room, with the north wind whistling through the 
cracks and the large openings around the loudly protesting windows, 
and not a spark of heat. The only warmth I had was when I pressed 
my numb fingers against the electric-light bulb to thaw them enough 
to enable me to comb my hair and fasten my clothes." Many other 
teachers report similar conditions. They say that they expect to en- 
dure some inconveniences, but that they should not be required to en- 
dure any more than other persons in the mining camp. The miner's 
home, though small, is well heated, and it is not necessary for him 
or any of the family to have separate rooms for reading. This is 
necessary for the teacher. There is no place for her to receive 
callers if she is fortunate enough to find a rooming and boarding 
place. Her social life is thus very limited. 

Since there are no suitable rooming and boarding places in the 
average mining town, it is difficult to obtain teachers. Often only 
those who can not find positions elsewhere consent to teach in a 
mining camp, and the ones who do teach there are, with the excep- 
tion of those in a few districts, looking for positions elsewhere. 

The solution of the rooming and boarding problem in the mining 
town is the teacher's home, such as may now be found in several 
communities, where the teachers can be comfortable and happy, be 
more efficient in their regular school work, and be a part of the 
community. 

EXAMPLES OF MINING TOWN SCHOOLS. 

In the preceding pages an attempt is made to show in what re- 
spect mining town schools may be improved. To show that what is 



I ■ IV ■ 'mi ■ ■ --■.-- -'] i t ^i f iilM«l«— i»— 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 21 

outlined is not impossible of accomplishment, concrete examples of 
what several mining communities are doing in their schools are 
given. These communities are Langeloth and Ellsworth, Pa., and 
the 21 mining towns of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Eailroad Co. 
However, the schools at these places are financed in part by the com- 
panies. This plan can not be commended. All public schools should 
be supported by public taxes. The schools at these places are given 
as examples of what might be if the public would supply sufficient 
funds for its schools. 

Langeloth, Pa. — Langeloth is an unincorporated town of 1,500 
population, situated 30 miles west of Pittsburgh. It is both a manu- 
facturing and mining town. 

The educational, social, recreational, and health work is in charge 
of a director who is also employment manager of the company. He 
is known as the educational and social director. His task is to 
correlate all the activities of the community — educational, recrea- 
tional, health, and social. 

The school is so organized that classes in the first three grades 
are taught in small groups averaging about 12 pupils each. There 
are on an average 36 pupils to each teacher, who usually has one or 
two groups in her room at a time, and teaches each group for a 
period of 20 minutes. Each child thus gets almost individual 
attention, and has at the same time the stimulation of other pupils 
in the group. Each group goes just as fast as it can. If a pupil 
can not maintain himself in his group, he is dropped back to the 
next lower group, which is only a few weeks behind. If a child has 
been out of school for a few weeks, he is upon his return to school 
placed in the group where he can maintain himself, and thus does 
not become a dead- weight to his class ; nor does he have to repeat the 
work of an entire half j^ear or year. 

The children who are not in the regular classroom are taking 
music under a special teacher, or are on the playground or in the 
playroom under the supervision of a play instructor. In the grades 
above the third the groups are larger, but the children are given 
opportunity for special work in music, manual training, home 
economics, and play. 

In the primary grades 1 hour a day is allowed for play and 20 
minutes a day for music. The school hours are from 9 a. m. to 3.55 
p. m., with 1 hour and 45 minutes for the noon recess. In the ele- 
mentary grades above the third each child has 40 minutes for play. 
20 for music, and 60 for manual training or home economics each 
day. The school hours are from 8.25 a. m. to 4.55 p. m., with 1 hour 
and 40 minutes for noon recess. The program in practice is about 



22 SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 

as follows: After a recitation period there is a play period, or a 
period in music or in handwork, then back to the regular classroom. 
Study and play or handwork are thus alternated throughout the day. 

There are two special teachers of play, a man and a woman, em- 
ployed for the entire year. These instructors have charge of the 
recreational activities of the entire community. 

There is a psychological clinic in the schools. The year this clinic 
was established it was under the direction of the head of the psycho- 
logical clinic of the University of Pittsburgh, who spent part of each 
week at the Langeloth schools. At present the clinic is in charge of 
one of the teachers who made special preparation for this kind of 
work. 

A dental clinic is also maintained, where every school child is ex- 
amined. A physician is employed to look after the health not only 
of the school children but of the entire community. A school nurse 
or home visitor is employed. She visits the schools once each day, 
and spends the rest of her time in the homes, giving instruction in 
home hygiene, sanitation, and household economy. 

An evening school provides instruction for adults. Any subject is 
provided if five persons ask for it. A class of women is taught home 
economics. The school building is open practically every night for 
recreational purposes. The Langeloth band has its headquarters, 
and does its practicing in the school. Numerous parties are held in 
the school building ; several clubs use it for dancing. Pool tables are 
part of the equipment. 

Several houses completely furnished are provided for the teachers 
and the school nurse, the proportionate share of the rent per teacher 
amounting to five or six dollars per month. 

The motion-picture house of the town is in charge of the director 
of schools. The usual admission price is charged, but no attempt is 
made to secure a profit. If a profit is made on any show, additional 
films or other features are provided at the next show. 

Ellsworth, Pa. — Ellsworth, Pa., is a purely mining town located 
about 24 miles south of Pittsburgh. The schools are organized in 
almost the same way as those at Langeloth, except that there are a 
kindergarten, a high school, and a home economics and an industrial 
vocational school. 

The physician employed by the company is the school physician. 
The company nurse is also at the service of the schools. The nurse 
gives a course in home economics, in sanitation, and in the care of 
children. There is an evening class on care of children for the adult 
women. About 30 are enrolled in the course. The home economics 
teacher has a class of women in cooking and sewing two evenings a . 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN" COAL REGIONS. 23 

week. There are evening classes for men in mathematics and Eng- 
lish and in subjects pertaining to mining. 

Much attention is given to directed or supervised play for children 
below the seventh grade, two 35-minute periods a day being given to 
it. A special supervisor is employed. 

The program is arranged on a departmental plan, so that instruc- 
tion in music, drawing, play, and construction may be given by spe- 
cial teachers. The program as arranged in February, 1919, was as 
follows : 



24 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 



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26 SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 

WORK IN HOME ECONOMICS. 

One of the school buildings is used for all community activities, 
as dances, and orchestral and band concerts. The superintendent 
of schools decides when the different organizations may use the 
buildings and has general supervision of community affairs held in 
the school building. 

There is a teacher's home which is in charge of the teacner of 
home economics, who also lives there and who conducts her classes 
in connection with the management of the home. The work in 
home economics is practical, as may be noted from the following 
description by Mrs. Marion S. McDowell, superintendent Ellsworth- 
Cokeburg Schools: 

Practice house is a familiar term to those engaged in home economics. 
There are many such houses scattered through the country, especially as part 
of schools training teachers for home economics. I refer you now to such 
an apartment used in the training of high-school girls and those of upper 
grades ; also used for evening classes for the women of the foreign born, and the 
well educated American type. The practice house by its name implies an 
attempt to reproduce home conditions, so far as possible for students of home 
making. It is obvious to anyone that home conditions can not be adequately 
reproduced in the school. The family group has a unity and a purpose that 
must be lacking in any student group, yet this practice apartment is so 
much nearer the conditions of the family life that it far surpasses the old 
plan of trying to teach these subjects in the laboratory kitchen and school 
kitchen and school sewing room. The physical care of the house can be 
excellent student practice. While it is more carefully ordered and less in- 
terrupted than in an ordinary house, yet is that not a good fault to fail to 
present the most complicated and trying of household problems to young girls, 
in order not to discourage them with the whole process, but rather let them 
see it in a well-ordered way and practical for their station? As the girl matures 
and actually faces the problem, then she can work from the real situation 
toward her ideal. Then she is facing the problem with greater purpose in 
view, is more mature, and has greater experience in life. She is better able 
to cope with the situation if she has first had her experience in the well- 
ordered, well-arranged practice apartment. The idea is to make the training 
typical, to offer such practice as can naturally be given to advantage to the 
student and will prepare her effectively for the home pure and simple. This 
preparation for housekeeping and home making used to be given in the school 
laboratory. The jump from the laboratory work to the cooking in the home 
was a big one, one too great for many to accomplish. Parents and children 
look upon the typical school kitchen as a fine-looking place with all the modern 
cooking school tables and up-to-date equipment, but impossible to adapt the 
work done there to use at home. I well remember some of my first experiences 
in the school kitchen. 

The practice apartment, to which I referred before, we are using for high- 
school girls and those of the seventh and eighth grades. It is a second-floor 
suite of rooms in a house containing four apartments. There are five small 
rooms, in which we teach all of the household arts subjects. The two rooms 
in the front are used for a combination of living and sewing rooms. These are 
furnished with comfortable straight-back cushioned chairs, a few wicker rock- 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL EEGIONS. 27 

ers, a cot which is used for a davenport, and several folding sewing tables. 
These little tables are not nearly as convenient as the regulation school sewing- 
room table, but they can be moved about and put away when not in use. This 
is exactly what would be used in the home, therefore the girls have less trouble 
in adapting their methods to home use. Whea one of these little tables is not 
large enough for cutting, she will find a larger table in the kitchen. This is also 
what she would do at home. In these two rooms, at different hours of the day, 
are taught sewing, dressmaking, drawing and design, housing, planning and fur- 
nishing, millinery, textiles, and home management. Next is the bedroom, fur- 
nished with a bed, chiffonier, and dresser. Across the hall from the bedroom 
is the bathroom, and with these two the classes are taught in home nursing, 
sanitation, and hygiene. Again, this is not the hospital equipment, but the 
ordinary home equipment. At the end of the hall the kitchen is located, the 
very small dining room leading out of the kitchen. The kitchen is furnished 
with the ordinary kitchen table, kitchen cabinet, and family size stove. It is 
very little if any better in furnishings than any of the girls will find in their 
own homes. While it has been enlarged by removing partitions, in order to 
accommodate larger classes, still it has suggestions of divisions, which make it 
appear like the small kitchen with which we started. Here the girls are taught 
cooking, food study, meal planning and serving, home management, production, 
transportation, household accounts, dietetics, and other kindred subjects. They 
are taught in their natural environment. The meals which are planned are 
served in the little dining room. The girls are taught to serve as members of 
the family, and as they would serve at home, not as the one out of a thousand 
might, by having a maid. There is in every part of this work the home 
atmosphere, for the teachers of this course make their home in this apartment. 
One year we had a 3-year-old child as a part of the home life in the apartment. 

SOME OF THE PRACTICAL WOKK WHICH HAS BEEN DONE BY THE GIBLS. 

Turkey dinner served to the basket-ball girls. The number being too large 
for the dining room, they were served in the sewing room. Dinner served to 
the returned soldiers. Dinner served to the school directors. Refreshments pre- 
pared for a teachers' party, refreshments prepared for a high-school party, punch 
prepared for 400 servings for a community dance. Several of the girls offered 
their services in the kitchen during the season of the "flu." One dinner for 
over a hundred guests served on the business proposition by one small class. 
In all cases the girls prepared their own market orders, figured the cost of the 
dinners as a whole, and the cost per plate. In household decoration we have 
taken as practical problems the official club room and all of the rooms of the 
Ellsworth Inn. In their sewing classes they have furnished the apartment with 
the necessary linen and curtains, made much of the linen for the Cokeburg 
teacherage, and otherwise made numerous garments for themselves, such as 
undergarments and dresses. By way of evening classes for adult women we 
find them much more willing to come to the school apartment, and they enjoy 
the work there very much better than in the school laboratories. We have one 
cooking class and one sewing class for the foreign women, another cooking and 
another sewing class for the American women. The foreign women occasionally 
teach us how to prepare one of their dishes, and exchange vork with us in that 
way. For our Christmas kindergarten party the foreign women will prepare 
the refreshments in their cooking class. Parents and girls can not say of our 
work that such can not be done at home (as is often said from the school 
kitchen and sewing room), for here they are working in the home conditions, 
not under laboratory conditions. 



28 



SCHOOLS IIST THE APPALACHIAN COAL KEGIONS. 



Practice. 


Units. 









* 









i 


5 


(90 mln. 


periods) 


i 


5 


(90 min. 


periods) 


* 









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5 (90 min. periods) i 
5 (90 min. periods) \ 



By way of conclusion, do I consider this practice apartment an experiment or 
a luxury? It has been an experiment for these young girls, but I now consider 
it a necessity, the most practical and efficient way that they can be taught, not 
only by precept but by way of example. 

HOUSEHOLD ARTS, YOCATIONAL SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL. 

Tenth Year. 

First semester. 

Recitation. 

English 5 

Elective 5 

Drawing and design 

Dressmaking 

Second semester. 

English 5 

Elective 5 

Cookery (food study, production, transporta- 
tion) 

Home management, housekeeping, planning and 
serving meals, laundry and household ac- 
counts 

Eleventh Year. 

First semester. 

English . 5 

Elective 5 

Household chemistry 3 

Clothing design, house planning, household fur- 
nishing 

Second semester. 

English 5 

Elective 5 

Household chemistry 3 

Sanitation, hygiene, home nursing 

Twelfth Year. 

First semester. 

English 5 

Elective 5 

Household physics 3 

Millinery, dressmaking, textiles 

Second semester. 

English 5 

Elective : 5 

Hoiisehold physics 3 

Home management, dietetics 



5 (90 min. periods) i 



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i 

4 i 

5 (90 min. periods) $ 



i 

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4 * 

5 (90 min. periods) J 



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4 i 

5 (90 min. periods) i 



schools nsr the Appalachian coal hegions. 29 

One of the features is a vocational school which aims to give in- 
struction regarding some phases of mine operation. Some part-time 
work is given. The course of study is as follows : 

Four hours per week, woodwork. 

Prevocational work is to familiarize the boys with the tools and their use. 
Average age, 13 years. 

General industrial course entrance requirement, graduation from grades. 
This course is two years in length. Average age, 15 years. 

Plan of course, ninth and tenth grades : One-half year woodshop, carpentry ; 
one-half year machine shop; one-half year blacksmithing ; one-half year elec- 
tricity. 

Forty periods per week, of 45 minutes each, as follows : Shopwork, 20 periods 
per week; mechanical drawing, 4; trade mathematics, 4; English, 4; trade 
theory, 2 ; history, 4 ; civics, 2. 

Cooperative course: One-half time every second week during school terms 
spent working at a trade in the mine shops, the other half time (or every second 
week) at school studying related subjects and academic subjects. Entrance 
requirement, graduation of general industrial course. Average age, 17 years. 

Plan of course, eleventh grade, 20 periods per week, of 45 minutes : English 
periods per week, 5; mathematics, 3; mechanical drawing, 3; physics (me- 
chanical and heat), 3; mathematics (trade), 3; shop methods and trade theory, 
3 ; total, 20 ; 40 per cent academic, 60 per cent related. 

Plan of course, twelfth grade : English periods per week, 3 ; mathematics, 3 ; 
history, 2; drawing, 3; physics (electricity), 3; mathematics (related), 3; 
modern shop practice, 3 ; total, 20 ; 40 per cent academic, 60 per cent related. 

The director of the vocational course says : 

Ellsworth is a coal mining town, and the only industry is coal mining; 
consequently there is a great demand for the better grade of miner and mine 
bosses. The education of the boys is to guide them in their work along these 
lines. The mining man has to know something about all trades, the more the 
better ; he has to be a good " jack of all trades " so to speak. The boys first 
meet with this work in the seventh and eighth grades of the grammar school, 
where they are introduced to the proper use of tools, devoting four hours per 
week to woodworking. This is their prevocational period. Upon graduation 
from the grades the boy may prepare for college. The majority of boys will 
not be entering college after leaving school, but will go to work. Our aim 
is to prepare him for useful occupation in life, as well as to teach him how 
to use to best advantage his leisure hours. Or he may enter the general 
industrial course of two years. He is given a good foundation in the trades 
he will meet at work at the mines. Upon graduation from this course he 
enters the employ of the coal company as an apprentice in his elected trad^, 
and works at the same for every second week, the other week being spent at 
school studying subjects that will make him more proficient in his trade, 
also the regular high-school academic subjects which broaden his knowledge. 
He spends two years at this work, and upon graduation he is employed fuli 
time by the company. His education need not stop here, however; he may 
continue to attend evening school, taking mining subjects and work that will 
lead to the State examinations for mine boss, fire boss, etc. This work is 
carried out in the evening because State requirements for mine boss and fir.? 1 
boss are such that he must have spent a certain number of years in the mines. 
His age in the cooperative and general industrial course would not permit 



30 SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL KEGIONS. 

him to work inside of the mines. Hence his further education on mining 
is taken at night. The whole plan may lead the progressive boy to be a- mine 
official. 

Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co. schools. — One of the most 
interesting educational experiments in the bituminous coal region of 
the Appalachian system is conducted by the Tennessee Coal, Iron & 
Railroad Co. in Jefferson County, Ala. There are 21 of these schools. 
The company furnishes buildings, employs a superintendent and 
special teachers, and supplements the funds of the county for run- 
ning the schools. The work is done in complete cooperation with 
the county school board, which apportions funds to the mining town 
school on the same basis as to other schools. The superintendent of 
the schools in the mining towns is an assistant county superintendent, 
but is paid entirely by the company. 

Special emphasis is placed on the work in physical education car- 
ried on in the schools by the regular teachers supervised by a spe- 
cialist in the subject. Cooking and sewing are also stressed and are 
taught in the welfare cottages located near the schoolhouses, with a 
special director in charge. These cottages are duplicates of those 
built by the company for its employees and are furnished simply but 
in good taste with such furnishings, as the workmen can afford. They 
serve as demonstration cottages for the community, as well as class- 
rooms for the children. Schoolhouses are built by the company and 
fitted into the scheme of landscape artistry adopted. Sites are care- 
fully selected. The architecture harmonizes with the village scheme, 
to which the schoolhouse and grounds often add the finishing touch. 
Buildings are particularly attractive and conform to the best modern 
ideas of school architecture, both outside and inside. The grounds 
are laid out with trees, shrubbery, school gardens, inclosed tennis and 
basket ball courts, and other equipment for recreation. The ma- 
jority of the buildings visited have auditoriums, cloakrooms, supply 
closets, and other school conveniences. There are adjustable desks, 
supplementary reading material, and good working equipment in all 
schools. 

The school housekeeping and general upkeep are worthy of special 
notice and may well serve as a model for other schools in and out 
of the county. Janitors are furnished in all cases, and the work is 
supervised by the teachers. Floors are clean and well kept. Black- 
boards and windows are washed with soap and water regularly. 
The walls are decorated in good colors, and the interior of the rooms 
presents a pleasant appearance. 

The salaries furnished by the county for teachers are supple- 
mented sufficiently by the company to enable the superintendent to 
secure professionally trained and experienced persons. Social work 



SCHOOLS IN THE APPALACHIAN COAL REGIONS. 31 

is required b}^ the company, and special stress is placed on personality 
and fitness for this additional service. The classroom work is of 
splendid quality.. The teaching staff shows good organization, en- 
thusiasm, loyalty, and a high degree of professional spirit. As 
an example of this, the May Day program of the colored schools held 
at Westfielcl, May 3, may be cited. The program consisted of a 
pageant, introducing setting-up drills, folk dances, and the like. 
Children marched and drilled with soldier-like perfection. They 
showed splendid training, all of which was given by the regular 
teachers — none of whom had had previous experience or training 
in this kind of work — under the direction of the supervisor of physi- 
cal education. The interest of the community was shown by an 
attendance of probably 2,000. The program was carried out without 
a hitch, and order on the ground was perfect throughout the day. 

This is one example of the organization and supervision which 
prevails throughout the system. As a whole it is an object lesson 
in efficiency which may well be studied by other mining communities. 
It shows conclusively what can be done by the expenditure of reason- 
able funds, business management, and professional service. Condi- 
tions are not different in any essentials from those of the surrounding 
territory. What can be accomplished here can be accomplished else- 
where with similar management and expenditure. 

If private corporations can get value received from the money 
spent on schools as just described in the added efficiency and happi- 
ness of its employees, surely a community, a county, or a State will 
benefit at least in the same proportion from similar methods in 
school improvement. These schools demonstrate conclusively that 
what is advocated in this respect is possible of achievement if suffi- 
cient funds are provided; that education is a good business invest- 
ment ; that schools in mining towns can be as good as those in cities ; 
that mining town people appreciate good schools and good build- 
ings; and that children under trained teachers do good work and 
are happy in doing it. 

o 



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